I titled this thread "Love my Vox" which I do, but that creates a problem, my wife wants one too. Now she uses it only to read books, so for Christmas I was thinking I would get her a dedicated ereader like the Kobo Touch, but is that the best choice? She will want to access the library, and read books from Kobo and that's about it. Kobo now has quite a few choices, the Touch has been around the longest, but .............. at present she is reading from our daughter's Kindle, a very basic ereader with eInk screen, is that a better choice? How about someone who owns one or knows a bit about these devices give me a few clues so I will not goof up another Christmas gift. She bought the Vox for me last Christmas and I use it every day for ereading and presentations, and fun surfing the net .............

I titled this thread "Love my Vox" which I do, but that creates a problem, my wife wants one too. Now she uses it only to read books, so for Christmas I was thinking I would get her a dedicated ereader like the Kobo Touch, but is that the best choice? She will want to access the library, and read books from Kobo and that's about it. Kobo now has quite a few choices, the Touch has been around the longest, but .............. at present she is reading from our daughter's Kindle, a very basic ereader with eInk screen, is that a better choice? How about someone who owns one or knows a bit about these devices give me a few clues so I will not goof up another Christmas gift. She bought the Vox for me last Christmas and I use it every day for ereading and presentations, and fun surfing the net .............

Kindle uses only Amazon book formats. Your Vox allows you to read these with a Kindle app but for an eReader (unless you want to use Calibre and figure out how to strip DRM) you have to decide what format you want for your books: epub, which is what is available in Canadian libraries for ebook loans, Kobo's book store and many others, or mobi/azw format which is the Amazon format.
I think the sources for your wife's books would likely be the determining factor and since she wants library books, Kobo or Sony readers are the most likely choices for someone in our country.
Sony does allow you to get your library books directly on the device, it's a very easy choice built into the user interface.
But I do like my Kobos too... Even though they don't offer that, they have other advantages ((like the size for my Mini).

This definitely gives me some where to start. I will look at the Sony and of course the Kobo Mini and Glo devices. She does want the library books so that makes the Sony sound good and I never would have thought of it. Many thanks

If she loves your Vox why not buy her a Vox? Some readers actually prefer to read tablets rather than e-readers. The new Arc is also a consideration and there is always the posibility that when the Arc comes out the Vox will be discounted further.

When considering between Kobo and Sony you might want to take into account people's concerns about whether Sony is losing it's commitment to e-readers ( I'm referring to devices not people). You may want to read some of the various threads (good and bad) in the Sony forum to get a better feel for how Sony owner's feel about their ereaders.

If she loves your Vox why not buy her a Vox? Some readers actually prefer to read tablets rather than e-readers. The new Arc is also a consideration and there is always the posibility that when the Arc comes out the Vox will be discounted further.

When considering between Kobo and Sony you might want to take into account people's concerns about whether Sony is losing it's commitment to e-readers ( I'm referring to devices not people). You may want to read some of the various threads (good and bad) in the Sony forum to get a better feel for how Sony owner's feel about their ereaders.

Actually, I love my Vox, she wants just a dedicated ereader, and mostly for library books. I note some concerns over the Sony as you point out, yet the Sony seems to have the features my wife would like. Also they are on sale at the Future Shop and Best Buy here. So the way I see it the Kobo Glo at same price as Sony will not be as convenient for her in downloading library books.Back to the drawing board.

EDIT: Hmm. Nope. Just checked the Web sites and the sale is very, very minor ($10 off). If they'd been down to $100, on the other hand...

It looks like Kobo doesn't promote or sell the Vox anymore. I think they sold for around $200 before taxes and now I see Futureshop and Bestbuy has them for $180. Maybe supplies are limited and people who want them will pay $180 plus tax.

I have my Vox that I got nearly a year ago. The charger started to fray after less than 2 months. Kobo did send me a new one at no cost to me after I started a support ticket. At that point they weren't selling chargers, but they later started to do so. However, as you can see at the above link, they are 'out of stock' and they have been for quite some time now. I don't expect them to stock any more, since the Vox is likely going to be obsolete. I think Kobo is now handling issues with the charger on a case-by-case basis, as I've seen at the getsatisfaction web site.

Would you even pay $30 if it were available? I got one off eBay for $9 + $3 shipping and it has a longer cord.

I can understand why Kobo discontinued the Vox (and the proprietary charger) because it was getting slagged all over the Internet. However, I'm still happy with mine and wouldn't spend $50 for something else that does everything the Vox does, even better.

Well, the charger was "different" in that it was 2 amps, which was rare, the cable was integrated and it was marked "Kobo". Oddly, it was not available aftermarket from Kobo until near the end of the Vox and by then a much less expensive equivalent was available aftermarket. In spite of the special connector wiring, it works just fine charging Playbooks and Blackberries.

She has to install adobe digital editions on the PC, authorize her reader with the ADE software by attaching it. When she finds a book, she download her books from the library site to ADE. Then she attaches her reader to the PC and transfers the book to the reader.
Depending on the numbers of days chosen for checkout, usually 7,14 or 21, the book "expires" and can no longer be read... Or it can be returned early if finished using the ADE software.
If she's not "techy" at all, using a Sony is a lot simpler... No PC required at all once she has her ADE userid authorized on the reader. Just browse on the reader and download directly from the library to the reader.